"Yeah. It's not very big or famous but still. Some girl won a beauty pageant and she was from there"

"What's the weather like?"

"Light clouds so we need to wrap up or we'll be exposed," he said.

"How do you know so much about this place? Have you ever been there?"

"No but Rosalie was talking about entering the Miss Universe Pageant and they mentioned the girl. The name stuck with me. I mean, it is pretty distinctive" I nodded. We drove rapidly to the airport and hurried to board. Every second we waited put Alice and Bella in danger. I bobbed about impatiently, staring straight ahead. I glanced at Edward and saw that he was also bobbing up and down.

"Calm down" I muttered.

"Hypocrite" he replied. I shrugged.

When we finally arrived in Norway, Edward sorted out the car (stealing one) and I got our luggage (not much of that. Just some ropes and stuff in case of emergencies).

"How long will this take?" I asked.

"Eight minutes. It's not far but I still got the fastest car I could find" It was a nice car. A black Ford Mustang GT coupe.

"I want to keep it," Edward muttered in agreement.

"When we've rescued the girls you can buy one"

"Good. I haven't bought a car in twenty years. And that was the Volvo"

"Remember the day of classic cars?"

"How could I forget?" we both sighed nostalgically.

"Okay, we're here" we stopped the car. The first thing that struck me was how quiet it was.

"Where is everybody?" said Edward. All the buildings were made of wood and the windows boarded up.

"Yuck! What a foul smell!" I said. Edward nodded. There was a creak. One of the doors to the houses was open and blowing in the wind. We approached it cautiously and froze.

Inside was a body. It wasn't simply decapitated. It was mangled. Its limbs were strewn over the floor and blood stained every surface. Its skin was stripped from its body and the organs were strangling another person. This one actually had his head and there was no sign of its organs being scattered round this floor. The skin was removed from all the figures in the room.

"Six. All dead. I bet the other houses are the same"

I couldn't speak. The stench of fear in the house, in the whole town was strong as if the dead were still producing it. We backed out of the house and followed the smell of fear to its heart, an old dilapidated church with no windows. Edward pushed open the door reluctantly, fearing what we would find. The stench of death and fear was overwhelming. We gasped simultaneously at the sight in front of us. In my entire life, I'd never seen anything so horrific.

What lay before us was a gross parody of a church service. In each pew sat families, couple, and individuals. All skinned. The citizens of hell. We'd assumed there were no windows but now we could see that each stained glass window had been broken, every piece of glass removed and instead the stretched out skin of the citizens covered the window with no gaps. The inside of the church was a sickly pinkish-red from the light shining through the skin. Above the vicar's pulpit was an old wooden cross. Nailed to it was another skinless corpse but this one had been decorated. A crown of thorns on its head and a vicar's dog collar around its neck.

"They're mimicking the crucifixion," muttered Edward.

We should leave, I thought.

"Help Me," said a faint voice. We rushed to the source. A girl was lying under a table behind the cross. There was a huge dog beside her, fast asleep with its front paws resting on her legs. She was stained with blood and her auburn hair had been ripped out in chunks.

"Help Me," she whispered again. I reached out a hand and she seized it. Her skin felt strange. Cold, like dead flesh. I start to pull her free. The dog twitched. I froze. It stood up and growled. It was a monster. A huge beast with inch long, razor-sharp teeth and claws. Black fur that rippled, when it moved, over its iron muscles. And its eyes. Huge, a deep fiery red. They burned with hunger and a desire to kill. Something else was hidden within their fiery depths. Hatred.

The dog tugged the girl back by her leg. She screamed as its teeth dug into her flesh. Edward glanced at me, unsure of what to do. The dog tensed its leg muscles and prepared to leap. I crouched in front of it. We leapt. We should have collided in mid air but I landed, sprawled on the floor in a heap. I jumped to my feet. No dog. Edward was lying on the floor, wrapped in chains. I turned with a growing sense of dread. A beautiful woman with flowing auburn hair stood before me. Her skin was the colour of caramel and her eyes were silver. She was wearing a tight black dress.